To the editor:

Will someone explain what causes some people to be liberal and others to be conservative? Is it their background, gender, education, insecurity, upbringing, nationality, genetics, IQ, wealth, self-discipline, individualism, values or a combination of them?

My father (a farm boy) went to KU in the late ’20s and 1930. After getting his teaching certificate, he taught school for 12 years (10 years in a one-room school with all eight grades). He was a registered Democrat who voted for Adlai Stevenson. My dad and uncle were more moderate than I.

My bachelor uncle (Dad’s brother), who graduated from high school in 1928 and went right to farming, thought our country should mind its own business and stay out of other countries’ affairs. I disagree. Do we wait until the wolf is at our door (Pearl Harbor, 9-11) before we react? Do we have to do that to get the populace behind our leaders? I don’t care if Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or not for an excuse to go after him. He was killing his own people because they disagreed with him politically and/or religiously. Saddam invaded his neighbor. If you let the bully go unchecked, where will it end? It’s also in our national interest. If we don’t look out for ourselves, who will? The United Nations?

It seems to me the Journal-World slants some of its content toward its readership. You usually print what this community wants to hear. That’s just good business isn’t it? So reading Cal Thomas is like a breath of fresh air. He tells it like it is. For that I say, “Thank you!” Please keep up his column in your paper.

Myron Feuerborn,

Lawrence